Commonplace Glory, Missoula, Montana

“Thank God, all you who have a spark of rational piety in your hearts, for the glorious commonplace of earth and sky,—for this cloud-embosomed planet in which you pass your lives.” ~William Smith, Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good and Evil, 1862

Verdant Hillside, Missoula, Montana

Sunlight peered from betwixt moody clouds, casting a random eye on rolling grassland north of Missoula.
Up and over the hill to the right, we happened upon Friday’s delightful view of a green sheepherder wagon & fleecy flock, parked in another green valley. 
All around, a good day for green.

Low Larkspur Landing, Missoula, Montana

Little green bug 
+ relatively big purple flower 
= perfect secondary colour combo

Clusters, Missoula, Montana

It seemed to me the violet-hued cloud clusters found their echo in land-bound lupines.

Grace-full, Missoula, Montana

This quote reminds me why Frederick Buechner is on my list of all-time favourite writers. If you haven’t indulged, please click the text link on his name to dip your toe in his thought waters.

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.” - Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

Same Trail - New View, Missoula, Montana

I love how the same Montana trail (pick a trail, any trail), even on consecutive days, is never tiresome; there’s always a new view offered.
My current go-to hike (mainly thanks to my tick phobia) is the wide open hillside of Missoula's Ray Froehlich Trail. Each evening I begin walking across the parking area, I vow that, because I’ve repeatedly seen the first half mile, I will not stop to take photos until I venture further.
But I find the light keeps changing, shadows alter mood, and flora insist on unfurling magnificently, bewitchingly, en route to full bloom. And so I crouch, linger - snap, snap, click! - and return to another day.

Lupine, Missoula, Montana

Texas has its bluebonnets; Montana has lupines.

Cloudy With A Chance, Missoula, Montana

There’s nothing quite like a spreading span of storm clouds to enhance the drama of Montana’s Big Sky.

Zoom In, Missoula, Montana

At first glance, the lines and shapes of a flower are lovely in their own right.
A closer looks shows how truly wondrous is the intricate detail, a small cluster of flowers creating each yellow satellite.

Seeing such sweet surprises during photo editing has been an unexpected bonus of maintaining this blog.

Take time to zoom in to a deeper layer of observation of the unassuming - almost like stopping to smell the roses.

Full Bloom, Missoula, Montana

“As long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will

fully bloom. It happens in its own time.”-
Denis Waitley

Glory Days, Missoula, Montana

And here are the formerly fuzzies in glorious full bloom!

Closer To Apogee, Missoula, Montana

" 'The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mademoiselle,' he said at last, 'is the name of a humble English wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world, so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do.' " -Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ch. 4

Fierce and Furry, Missoula, Montana

 



Summer hollyhocks convert to graceful floral dolls, but these fierce and furry spring wildflowers would inspire something more along lines of “Where the Wild Things Are”. 
Especially since they are wildflowers…ferociously guarding the Missoula skyline.

The Ant's Lookout View, Missoula, Montana

“When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.”
- E. O. Wilson, American biologist and myrmecologist(Click the text link to learn your new word for the day.)

Unwary Comeliness, Missoula, Montana

“Art was the rememberer. He know what he knew and what had been known by a lot of dead kinfolks and neighbors. They lived on in his mind and spoke there, reminding him and us of things that needed to be remembered. Art had a compound mind, as a daisy has a compound flower, and his mind had something of the unwary comeliness of a daisy. Something that happened would remind him of something that he remembered, which would remind him of something that his grandfather remembered. It was not that he “lived in his mind.” He lived in the place, but the place was where the memories were, and he walked among them, tracing them out over the living ground. That was why we loved him.”
- Wendell Berry, in his story “Are You All Right?”, from the five-story volume "Fidelity"

This paragraph brought to mind some beloved and comely daisies in my own dear family. What a delightful blessing, to partake of their rememberings.

Blowing Over, Missoula, Montana

“FAINT winds, and a song fading and leaves falling,

Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter...
And the rain and over the fields a voice calling...

One gray blown cloud scurries and lifts above,

Slides on the sun and flutters there to waft her

Sisters on. ...
And down the valley through the crying trees

The body of the darker storm flies; brings

With its new air the breath of sunken seas

And slender tenuous thunder...

But I wait . . .”

From A POEM AMORY SENT TO ELEANOR AND WHICH HE CALLED "SUMMER STORM" 
by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

Pour a cup of joe and sit a spell to enjoy the full text here.

Wild Green Fuzzy, Missoula, Montana

"I wander round and round the Garden

Like Wordsworth, but are my words worth

Anything like his? Or is this more a nursery rhyme

And I wander, blunder, round the Garden

Like a teddy bear, fuzzy wuzzy, verses buzzing

In my little brain? Verses flow and flower

In me, I can’t stem their growth and

If we walk, meander, round the Garden

Maybe words will bloom there"

- Mab Jones, Poet In Residence, Nat'l Botanic Garden of Wales

Winding Up To Sky, Missoula, Montana

“The landscape was tidy and bare...Nothing had begun to grow yet in the waiting country side....
It was going to be all right. This was what he had needed, this wide silence, this space, this serenity. 
He had forgotten how benevolent the place was, how satisfying. The near hills were round and green and kind; beyond them were farther ones, stained blue by the distance. And behind all stood the long rampart of the Highland line, white and remote against the calm sky.”- Josephine Tey, from “The Singing Sands”, p. 21

Rocky Ground, Missoula, Montana

“We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground…
There's a new day coming…”
Bruce Springsteen, from Rocky Ground, on the album “Wrecking Ball”

“For the longest time, I've felt like I inherited a plot of land of rocky soil and was required, for my survival and my livelihood, to farm it alone. The image is so clear I can see it….but no matter how hard I tried to bust the rocks, …there were more rocks underneath the rocks. And you know what happens with rocky soil - nothing really grows in it. So, in my mind, I stopped going out to try to bust the rocks with a hoe. …And one at a time, I remove the rocks with my hands and make a pile by the side of the field. Soon I can start constructing a stone-and-mortar foundation… I can see that house and chimney growing, clearly, as well. It's beautiful and rustic and rough, but rough in a pleasing way.

So I take out a few rocks at a time and I work on just one row of the field at a time. There's still nothing growing in the field, but something keeps telling me, "The time for the harvest is not now. Keep working the soil and preparing your foundation." “ - from on-line discussion “
Farming the rocky soil” at Ojar.com

Grass and Sky, Missoula, Montana

"...Oh, we would ride and we would listen
And hear the message on the wind.
The grass in morning dew would glisten
Until the sun would dry and blend
The grass to ground and air to skying..."
-From "Anthem" by Buck Ramsey, Cowboy Poet (1938-1998)